49 - How I Lead a Discovery Call as a Photographer

Welcome to All Angles Photography Podcast, I'm your host, Claire Hunt, and in today's episode, we are covering a snapshot's question that was submitted by actually quite a few of you. The question is, how do you lead a discovery call? I understand that the reason that this question was probably submitted a lot is because a discovery call does totally have the ability to make or break your sales process. By the time that a client gets to the point of inquiring with you and booking a discovery call with you, they are in that second phase of the marketing funnel of considering. So this call really is that final step before a couple gets to third phase of the marketing funnel, which is to hire you. And I can guarantee that that is likely the goal of most of you out there listening where it's like, well, obviously my inquiry to booking process would mean that they end up booking. And I have quite a bit of perspective to share with you today around discovery calls. So we're going to dive into why discovery calls matter in the first place. How I view discovery calls, how I personally remain the leader of the conversation and a discovery call because that is important. Some of my favorite questions to ask that I do have in my discovery call script and even how I measure the success of a discovery call. So if that sounds like something that would serve you where you were at in your business right now, then keep listening and let's dive into today's episode. You're listening to all angles, a business and photography podcast that truly hits on all angles of creating and sustaining a fulfilling photography career. Hosted by Claire Hunt, a former pediatric trauma nurse turned wedding photographer and educator. Every two weeks, Claire brings you tangible and actionable tips that help you improve your dream business, all while providing you some encouragement along the way. For marketing, client experience, travel, content creation, productivity, and more, grab your coffee. Because we're about to hit on all angles of running your dream photography business. Before we get into today's episode, you are listening to a snapshots episode. If you're new here or just need a refresher, this is an ongoing series where I'm answering your questions on all angles. And yes, that means you, my friend. I started the series to give you a snapshot of what it's like to be mentored by me, but also to simply have the opportunity to get your biggest questions answered. This series does not replace intentional, personalized mentorship with me. But I want you to know that I really did create this snapshots series with you in mind. If you would like to submit your own question to be featured on one of the next snapshots episodes, the link is in the show notes and description and I cannot wait to answer it for you. So let's get into today's question and answer. Welcome back to the show, friend. As I mentioned, we are talking all about discovery calls on today's episode. And the first thing that I wanted to chat about is why discovery calls matter in the first place. Because as we talked about tiny bit, discovery calls can make or break your sales process. But a discovery call is actually not about selling by the time that a potential client gets to the point of booking this discovery call with you. In my opinion, I believe that they should be pretty sold on you already so that you're not going into this call thinking like, oh my gosh, I have to sell myself. I have to say everything correctly, et cetera, et cetera, the list goes on. This discovery call is more so about discovering whether or not you are a good fit for this potential client and whether or not they are a good fit for you. So it truly is that last piece of the sales process, but it should be about discovering whether or not you're both going to work really well together. So discovery calls truly are not all about converting. Sometimes you're going to determine like, hey, we're not the best fit for each other. And I definitely have a story for you in this episode on a time where that happened. And live on the call, I just shared that with this couple to be very transparent. And the way that you will convert more of your discovery calls, especially when it is a really aligned client and they feel aligned with you as well, is if you are giving an incredible before booking client experience. And the reason that I say this is because before booking, you are still providing a client experience, whether you know it or not. This goes all the way back to the portfolio that you're showcasing. It goes into your marketing and how you're speaking to your dream client. It goes into your website and how easy it was to get through your desired website funnel to the inquiry process to then your first inquiry response to feel confident enough of like, okay, yes, I've learned enough through this entire before booking process with her through her client experience that I feel confident getting on this 30 to 45 minute call. Because truly like who wants to waste their time chatting with somebody, I don't care who you are, how great you are if they don't feel confident that you could be a good fit. So if this before booking client experience is new to you, then you're really going to love episode number 14 of all angles where I speak to you about how client experience could be impacting your inquiries and bookings. And this episode is all about client experience from that before booking client experience perspective. I know you'll really find that episode helpful. So after you listen to this one, head on over to episode number 14 and I'll have it linked for you in the show notes in description as well. All of that being said though, I hope that this first part of the episode really does help to paint that picture at least just a little bit because I like to keep these snapshots episodes short. I really do try on why discovery calls matter and it's not just about selling. It's not just about converting and it actually has everything to do with discovering whether or not you're both a good fit for each other and everything that you've implemented in your business for the front end of your marketing in your website. And that before booking client experience is just going to make the discovery call feel like less of a hurdle or less of a stressor in your business. And it's even going to feel great for the client as well because there's not so much pressure or there's not so much of a desparado kind of vibe on a discovery call or afterward. And both of you can kind of go into it with more of an open mind of hey, we're really just discovering whether or not we're going to be a good fit because you know as a photographer that you are with your client for a very long time on their wedding day and it's important that both of you feel connected to each other. So that leads me to my second kind of part of this episode is how I remain the leader of the conversation and a discovery call so let's dive into that. There are three big pillars as to how I remain the leader of the conversation and really I've broken it down into these three to make it digestible for you number one but also number two because this is even kind of the flow I find myself going through for every single discovery call in my quote unquote script. So the very first pillar is connection. The second pillar is clear communication and the third pillar is confidence. So how each of these kind of manifest in my discovery call is that for connection I am really just focusing on being a genuine human being and connecting with this couple. We talk about their day, we talk about what they do for work, we talk about anything they shared with me and their inquiry that I want to hear more about. It's really about just getting to know them and hearing more about them and their story. This is how I start every single discovery call and literally it is the bulk of our conversation because connection is huge. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it and they buy it because they like no and trust you. And so if you can focus on connection at the very beginning of the call as long as there's actually a connection there, right? And this is really going to help you once you do get to that point of needing to have that clear communication about your services and even the confidence when talking about your services too. So now moving on to the second pillar and speaking about the clear communication piece of this, you need to have an idea of what exactly you want to say throughout the entire call to give that clear communication about your process, your approach without the call being all about you. This is something that I've found in auditing photographers inquiry to booking process that many of them do like even in their inquiry response to a couple, a lot of it is about them and it's not so much about the couple. And so if you can have that clear communication about your process and your approach without it feeling like it's all about you and still tying those pieces of your approach to what they've shared with you in the call and this comes down being an active listener and religious being present during the call, then that's going to help you whenever it comes to the confidence in speaking about your services and even how you know you can best help this couple and which package is right for them, all of those kinds of things. So the clear communication pillar of remaining leader of the conversation is to simply communicate what's needed in this call in order for both of you to feel confident moving forward. Once it's time to chat about the next steps and what your expectations are and what their expectations can be of you, this is where the confidence pillar comes into play because you have to be able to relay the next steps in a way where a couple feels disarmed whenever you're essentially making the ask and they feel confident that you know what you're doing and that everything again is a really clear process. You've had very clear communication around it and it's a very competent kind of feeling that creates more ease with getting a yes. Are you a wedding or a lot of my photographer who wants to learn how to attract book and serve your dream couples within the next three months? If so inside my mentorship program book it you will go from barely booking or accepting weddings just for the income to fully booking it with dream couples that you're actually excited about. This program has served over a hundred students and they have gone from not knowing where their next inquiry is coming from to consistent inquiries that convert into bookings. Instead of running their business with no plan they are standing out from the crowd with consistent marketing and a strategic website the books their dream couples. They've gone from serving budget shoppers to raise prices booking their highest packages on repeat. I'm talking like five thousand dollar packages my friend. After 90 days of learning and implementing you will build or rebuild your business to become profitable sustainable consistent and fulfilling. If you're ready to get clear on the next steps that you should take for your business in order to book out your calendar consistently then book it is the one mentorship program for you my friend. To learn more and apply click through the link in the show notes and description. We will make sure that this is the next best step for you by booking a coffee chat over Zoom to get to know each other and dive into where you're really at. I would love to get to know you and I cannot wait to see your application come through but for now let's get back to the episode. Now I'll tell you personally at the end of every discovery call I am not always saying hey do you guys want to book with me? Question mark no like sometimes it truly is just I have enjoyed talking with you guys so much thank you for taking the time out of your day to do this and just get to know me and let me get to know you so here are the next steps I can send over an email with all this information just so you remember it all and I'll plan to follow up with you in X amount of days. How does that sound? So it's not always about pay do you guys want to book with me? Can you book with me? Do you want to book this package that can feel desperate? Sometimes it truly is letting go of those rains a little bit and allowing them to just know what the next steps are and sometimes I personally feel that that approach of just being like hey I've enjoyed this so much I'm going to follow up with you guys in X amount of days how does that sound? That portrays more confidence than even asking in my opinion sometimes. So this is something where you're going to have to use your own intuition to know how to end the call but really confidence can look like either way and I think it comes down to reading the room and just knowing what is going to portray that confidence more with each couple because everyone's different and just to speak on confidence a little bit more I know through the many audits that I have done of my photographers and book it of their inquiry to booking process and just how they respond to inquiries how they lead a discovery call those kinds of things what I find most times is that photographers really just aren't confident especially when they're struggling with inquiries and bookings to feel like they're doing anything right they're like what's going wrong like something is going wrong here because I'm not getting enough inquiries or the inquiry that do get and they like get on a discovery call with me they end up going another direction like what am I doing wrong what are other photographers doing that I'm not doing that's guiding this couple away from me to book with them instead of me I just want to say that if that's you just because a couple doesn't book with you it doesn't mean that you've done anything wrong it really doesn't and it honestly doesn't even mean that Susie down the street is doing something different than you like sometimes it really just does come down to the connection piece and that they connected with somebody else better and that is okay but oh it's raining y'all it has literally been raining Colorado in the afternoon like every single day and it breaks my heart because it's summertime and I'm ready to go to the pool and then it gets cloudy and then it rains and then it's like kind of cooler outside and so it's really dampening my summer vibe but anyways I think it's dying down so hopefully it's not distracting if it is distracting just pretend that it's like you and me sitting on my back porch chillin listen into the rainfall and we're talking about discovery calls okay what I was essentially saying is that it doesn't always mean that you've done something wrong if a couple chooses to go another direction but if you find this happens more often than a couple choosing to book with you or you really are struggling with that confidence piece like so many of my photographers students in book it then I do disembye you to check out the information about book it and apply my friend I would love to get to know you I'd love to hear where you're at in your business and just hear even like what confidence you are struggling with because this really will make a break a discovery call if they can feel the desperate vibes or if they can just feel that you're not confident in your pricing your process those kinds of things so my friend that is the high-level overview of the three pillars to remain leader of the conversation and there is so much more that goes into it I literally have an entire lesson inside of book it called the inquiry to booking process we talk more about the actual booking rate you should be hoping for and things like that I know you would really love it so if you do apply and you are welcome to join because I do believe I'll be able to help you reach your goals then you can look forward to that lesson where we dive even deeper on these things now moving on let's talk about one of my favorite questions to ask in my discovery call and this is included in my discovery call script which until this point only my book it students have seen my discovery call script because I included as a template in the program but whenever I was recording this episode I was like why would I not make this available to you if that's something you'd want to get your hands on just to make sure that you are guiding a discovery call well and in a way that I know for sure converts so I'm going to make this discovery call script available to you in my shop literally today it's on sale and you can grab it I will drop the link in the show notes and description for you also with a special podcast listeners discount code so check that out check out the discovery call script and you'll see even more questions where this one comes from but my favorite question asked is what is most important to you whenever it comes to your wedding photographer this question specifically is the one that led me to turning down a client in the middle of a discovery call before we even got into many of the logistics pricing packages and all that good stuff it just really shine delight on what the couple was hoping for that wasn't something that I would be able to deliver on or even feel comfortable delivering on so I shared that I would give a little bit more about that experience so here goes for this specific couple they shared with me that they didn't want their photographer to be following them around like a lost puppy dog all day and to me whenever I heard this and was just hearing some more of what they were sharing in the same response it just felt very negative instead of really appreciating the photographers job and duty to photograph the special moments all of the in between moments those kinds of things and I just know that my approach even though this was for a team photographer mind you I knew that my approach and my team photographers approach would not be what they were hoping for they probably were hoping for more of a photographer who would truly be like a fly on the wall not so much engaging with them throughout the day and not being really like an integral part like right up front and center with the couple all that being said my approach is not like in your face it's not anything like that but just the way that they had described it I knew that I wanted to feel more like a friend to them I wanted my team photographer to feel like a friend to them and I wanted to just feel comfortable doing my job and what I felt was necessary in order to photograph their day without the fear of thinking that they would feel as if I'm following them around like a lost puppy dog which actually this was the reason I keep mentioning my team photographers because it was actually an inquiry for her so all of that being said I just reiterated what they had shared with me and just made sure that I heard it right and once they confirmed that it's like hey like I actually don't think that we're going to be the best fit for each other and let me tell you my friend I was sweating my face was so red and so hot because this was the first time that I was ever actually faced with the fact of we're not a good fit actually like at all and I don't want to work with them because I don't think I can give them the experience that they're hoping for and that's just a reality so sometimes that is going to happen but this question specifically allowed me to weed out a couple who probably wouldn't be happy working with us and we probably wouldn't be happy working with them and so this is where I just encourage you whenever it comes like measuring the success of a discovery call it really does come down to connection it really does come down to making sure that you really are the best fit for each other not just one way it goes both ways and so the fact that this was a no and I actually turned down this couple I consider that a win I consider that a win that we didn't have to work with them and try to make sure that we weren't stepping on any eggshells. And also, like, I'm so happy that they were able to go and find a photographer who met more of their vision and their hope and their expectation. And that just wasn't going to be us. So it's a win win for both of us. And so that's what I encourage you to think about whenever it comes to measuring the success of your discovery calls and not just thinking that a conversion as great as they are as much as we definitely want them for couples that we do want to work with. This is why I'm sharing my discovery call script with you as much as we love a conversion. That doesn't mean that's the only way to be successful with a discovery call. I know that this episode ended up being a little bit longer than I was hoping for just with it being a stat shots episode. But can you guys tell that even when you ask a direct question like how do you lead a discovery call clear? I'm like, but let me give you like three other things too. Anyways, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope that you got something right out of it. I hope that you do take the time to go check out the discovery call script template that I have put up on the shop literally just for you and same thing for book it. If you're like, man, I need more of that confidence. I need to feel more confident about my pricing, my process, my before booking, client experience, all of those things and even just gaining more inquiries and more bookings and feeling good about the longevity of your business. Then I also invite you to check out book it and to apply and I would love to get to know you. So that is it for today's snapshot's episode. If you want to submit your own question to be answered on an upcoming episode, then you can find that link in the show notes in description as well. So I can't wait to see you next time and I hope you're having a wonderful summer. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. I'll be back in your ears with more photobus goodness every two weeks so be sure to subscribe to the show. If you're loving the episodes, I want to welcome you to leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify so the podcast reaches more listeners just like you. Also, it lets me know what you enjoy hearing the most and I promise it really goes a long way. If you're ready to dig deeper, save yourself time and master all angles of running your dream photography business. I offer one-on-one mentoring, group mentorship programs for wedding and allotment photographers and resources to make your business work for you instead of the other way around. The links to all of these offerings will be in the show notes and description as well as any freebies and discounts mentioned in the episode. Until next time, my friend.